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TGOC ADDS
OCCASIONAL "SPECIAL EDITIONS"
TO ITS ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS
As you likely noticed the very moment you opened this electronic newsletter, its appearance is not exactly like that of previous e-newsletters you have received from us. Allow us to explain.
This is the first of what will be occasional "special-edition" e-newsletters that we are planning to send out, separate and apart from our regular biweekly e-newsletters. We have designed these special-edition e-newsletters specifically for the task of communicating with our readers about...well..."special" things that we want to bring to your attention. They will arrive in a "from-time-to-time" fashion, and will inform you of important goings-on at THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Welcome to "special-edition e-newsletter #1."
TGOC ANNOUNCES
CESSATION OF PUBLICATION OF ITS
QUARTERLY PRINTED NEWSLETTER
Several months ago, TGOC began sending out biweekly electronic newsletters as a way to communicate with friends and supporters of our work. The response has been extremely gratifying. By all reports, those who are receiving the e-newsletters find them both useful and informational. For that, we are grateful.
However, as you may be aware, for the past few years we also have mailed out a four-page printed newsletter on a quarterly basis. Little by little, the printed-newsletter mailing list became almost unmanageably large—in some ways, in fact, practically "taking on a life of its own" in the process. Names and addresses from entire church directories ended up being added to the list. People sent in names and addresses of friends and neighbors whose names they wanted placed on the list. And so on. Eventually, we had a mailing list that was approaching 20,000 people—many of whom had not requested that they receive the newsletter.
As you may also know, the United States Post Office recently announced sweeping rate increases that covered almost all classes of mail. Plus, printing costs are on the rise. And, with the printed newsletter's mailing list being as large as it was, it had begun requiring an inordinate amount of time and effort on the part of our in-house staff to write it, typeset it, address it, and mail it. When postage costs alone began to soar into the $4,000 range per quarter, we decided that it was time to step back, take a closer look at the printed newsletter, and reevaluate its overall purpose and efficacy. As we did, we came to the conclusion that the time had come for us to discontinue mailing the newsletter. There were several reasons behind this decision, but probably the most important was the fact that the printed newsletter represented such a significant financial drain on our work that we no longer believed it to be cost effective, especially since we can send out our e-newsletter in a much more effective (and much less expensive) manner. [The printed newsletter, to cite just one point of comparison with the e-newsletter, was mailed to only U.S. addresses, while the electronic newsletter has no such restrictions.]
The purpose of this special edition of our e-newsletter is to explain why we will not be mailing out any more printed newsletters. We wanted you to know that if you received the printed newsletter in the past, or if you went to our Website over the past few months to request that you be added to the printed-newsletter mailing list, effectively immediately it no longer will be arriving in your mailbox. From a stewardship point of view, we felt that we simply could not justify the expenditure of funds for such a project. The money we will save each year can now be funneled into other more-important aspects of the Lord's work in order to help us reach additional lost souls with the Gospel of Christ.
As always, your comments and suggestions are welcome at THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST. Please feel free to go to the "contact us" section of our Website and send us an e-mail. And please help us spread the word about our work, would you? We would be most grateful.
"TELL TEN,"
TO TOUT TGOC?!
While we are writing, we would like to mention one other thing. If you know someone who is not currently receiving our electronic newsletter, we would like to invite you to bring it to their attention by forwarding a recent copy to them, or by suggesting that they visit our Website at www.thegospelofchrist.com to sign up to receive it. In fact (as you can tell from the alarmingly alliterative title of this section), what we would really like to encourage you to do is to " 'tell ten,' to tout TGOC." Yes, in one way or another, tell ten people about our work at TGOC. For example, send them a link to our Website. Encourage them to sign up for our e-newsletter. Invite them to view or listen to one of our programs. Inform them about our new Bible quizzes. And so on. Our guess is that they will thank you for the heads up. And, who knows? They might even tell ten people about TGOC. And those ten would tell ten more, who would then tell ten more, and.... Well, you get the point.
Sincerely,
The Staff at THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST |
